Slashdot Mirror
Worst Linux Annoyances?
greenrd writes "Ever spent hours trying (and failing) to get a printer driver to work on Linux? Struggled to configure something ever-so-slightly out-of-the-ordinary? What have been your biggest annoyances when using Linux? Three O'Reilly authors are compiling a book on Linux annoyances - and their suggested solutions - and they've started a mailing list here. I can't help but think, though, that such a book will be dated quite quickly. Sure, some problems do languish unfixed for years - but equally, I suspect many of the problems will be fixed before, or soon after, the book's publication date. Still, increased visibility might motivate developers to create fixes or workarounds for some of the problems, so maybe this is an ideal opportunity to get your pet peeve finally addressed!"
"lsof /mountpoint/" will show you exactly what file descriptors are open, and allow you to easily terminate them by PID. lsof has a plethora of options, check out the man page, I'm sure you'll find it remarkably helpful.
---
"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
Configuring X is the worst thing with Linux PERIOD.
.. first post? /m
While accustomed users can get it to work - newbies are often left stranded before they even get to try out Linux. A lot of people really want to try Linux but they never get past the X config.
Just think of the improvements in general usability over the last few years (gnome/kde etc.) and compare that to how XFree86 has been evolving.
This is probably going to trigger comments such as: why dont you contribute then?? - well:
1. Lack of time
2. Are contributions actually welcome? we read a lot of stuff now and again about how the XFree86 crowd are blocking patches, rumours of forking etc. When people are forced to fork just to get excellent patches in theres something wrong.
Just my 2c.. oh and
Do yourself a favor and pick up the Apt installer from ATrpms. Download the Synaptic graphical interface for it once you've got it all set up and configured properly. That should be the last annoying install of almost any package I could imagine you running. These two applications together have solved the dependency/installation issue for me completely, and it was my biggest Linux annoyance too.
Rpm with apt is just as good as deb with apt. Everyone seems to be very confused about this issue, and tries to compare apt against rpm as if that somehow makes any sense. It doesn't. Apt works with both rpm and deb, and works very well with them. If you are using redhat and like it there is no reason to switch to something else just to get a dependancy checking package manager, just hit freshrpms.net and get apt.
Finkployd
Red Hat: up2date
Mandrake: urpmi
Debian: apt-get
Gentoo: emerge
SuSE: yast2
Man, the tools are there, learn how to use them. Dependency Hell is a thing (almost...) of the past.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
- Inconsistency in the administration tools,
including dropping the linuxconf tool for the less functional controlpanel.
- Failure to include any updates to Netscape.
- Choosing an immature unrealeased beta gcc version for a production release.
- Breaking the NFS client so that acccess times
became 100X slower (way to go guys, great job not testing there!).
- Breaking the install so that an upgrade hosed my Athlon box at home (motivating a quick run to Best Buy to get SuSE, and I've never looked back).
- Numerous Kernel bugs induced during "upgrades" which I need to accept to close security holes. I had 6 months of hell due to a Kernel bug which caused my server to give up the ghost without a cry for help. Sure I blamed it on hardware at first, since I had 1 year of uptime, but then I realized that their updates just didn't cut it, and they finally fixed it this June.
SuSE has some glitches too, in particular"RTFM. If you don't like it go use windows."
No! I told him to use graphical desktop apps. Nowhere did I even mentioned Windows.
Graphical archiving apps like File Roller and KArchive detect the file format automatically. Those are the apps you should be using, not commandline apps.
The numerous folks who insist that Linux is the cure-all and be-all for all computer woes.